Silvia María Hirsch

It was windy, as usual. On my first visit to the Izozo in 1984, the dry, dusty
north wind so characteristic of the Chaco covered me with dust when I
strolled through the community. I paid a brief visit to the great leader Boni-
facio Barrientos, known to his people as Kuaraia Guasu (great shadow),
who would die a year later. This chief had ruled his people for over fifty
years, had met several of Bolivia's presidents, and had struggled to defend
the Izoceño-Guaraní people and their territory. I was awed in the presence of
this frail man who had once stood to defend his people. By the following
year, when I visited the region again, Bonifacio Barrientos had died, and his
youngest son, named after him, but known as Boni Chico, was in charge.
(See photograph 1.) Deciding the topic of the fieldwork for my future dis-
sertation, I wondered whether such a young and inexperienced man could
become the leader of sixteen communities and face many challenges and ob-
stacles. What struck me while visiting the Izozo was the strong presence of
the chiefs, the involvement and participation of the Izoceños in development
projects, and their struggle to defend their territory and improve their living
conditions. The first thing one learned about the Izozo was that the Izoceños
maintained their capitanía, their traditional political organization, and that
they were proud of the struggle of their past leaders.

In 1986 I returned to the Izozo to stay for a year. The first week of my
fieldwork, an assembly of capitanes (chiefs) took place in the community of
La Brecha. This meeting was organized to discuss future development proj-
ects that would be implemented in the region, and I as a young graduate stu-
dent had to ask the permission of this assembly to conduct my research in
the area. To me, these events synthesized the powerful role of the political

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